Sound card and speakers

[Lukasz]

Hello everyone,

I'm during creating my hobbyist mini studio for playing with varranger and recording some stuff on cubase and so on. Because I haven't much time for music past last 15 years I have a huge gap in technology. As I readed it would be good to have some external sound card (it is called DAC I suppouse) for using VST instruments. I already have an sound module - Ketron SD1000 - which I would like to use. So my question is - what are your setup's and what would you recommend for:
- sound card /DAC (for now I picked up: ASUS Xonar U7 MKII)
- speakers (for now I picked up: Edifier R1600T III)
- some free DAW software for VST host?
I'm not going to move it anywhere, it will stay in my room.
Any suggestions?

[agaton]

Audio Interface ASUS Xonar U7 MKII:........................... NO
- cause no ASIO Driver and it is to slow to play VST instruments in a real time.

Audio Monitors Edifier R1600T III:..............NO
- cause it is a HiFi ware, not for using in homestudio

[agaton]

In this price segment maybe: Presonus AudioBox iOne as Audio Interface and for respectable homestudio nearfield monitors you have to pay some more money.

[Lukasz]

Thank you agaton for your answers. Asus has an ASIO driver, but I will not insist on it, I will read about your proposal. As for the speakers - they seemed good looking at the ratings, but if I pay 2 or 3 times more and get five times better, I will gladly consider it :-). As for Presonus Eris - do you mean E3.5 or E4.5? Maybe some other model? I would like to be able to connect at least two devices to them (DAC and SD1000), three would be absolutely great :-D

[agaton]

You need one Audio Interface with very fast ASIO (at last about 4-6ms Latency) to play normaly VST instruments. How many inputs you need on Audio Interface. Ketron SD1000 need two inputs and if I understand you good, you have also one DAC that you want to implement in the whole system. In this case you need one Audio Interface with at minimmum 4 inputs. Than Presonus AudioBox iOne is not good choice. Presonus AudioBox iTwo will be also not OK, but one Motu M4 will be one of the best choices for you. The price is higher, but quality is very good (Motu M4 use one of the world best ADDA: Sabre32Ultra). Motu M4 has 4 inputs in a best sound quality and its Latency is very, very low. As nearfield monitors one of the best choices price/quality is JBL 305 MKII.

[Lukasz]

Hello again,

I have read some opinions and test about JBL and I think it is really good choice, thank you agaton.
About audio interface - I didn't make myself clear, maybe because english is not my native language. And in addition I suppouse I mixed up a few things ;-). I was thinking, that DAC = sound card = audio interface. So reasumming: I have SD1000 that have 2x RCA output ports and I'm planning to buy another sound module, but in the not-so-near future. I don't know why but I was thinking that I have to connect all that devices directly to speakers. Now I see that I can connect them to that audio interface. So it is possible that my problem will be solved when I will buy audio interface with two inputs. Looking on the Presonus equipment I see that those tree devices are interesting:

• PRESONUS AUDIOBOX USB 96 25TH ANNIVERSARY‌ - the cheapest solution
• PRESONUS AUDIOBOX ITWO
• PRESONUS STUDIO 24C - it is 24-bits/192kHz and in the same price as ITWO

what do you think about them?

[agaton]

In this case PRESONUS STUDIO 24C. It will be fast enough for live play of VST instruments but it also depends from your Computer.